British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946).

Is Keynesianism now a thoughtcrime?

Ireland will be the only country to put the EU fiscal compact to a popular vote. But what is really on the table, denounces columnist Fintan O’Toole, is that neo-liberal ideology is being raised to the status of unbreakable law.

Published on 7 March 2012 at 14:23
British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946).

“. . . the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime they called it.” George Orwell, 1984

In the referendum we are now to have, the question is – ah, but what is the question?

It is not, as [Irish finance minister] Michael Noonan wrongly claimed last year, a referendum on whether Ireland should leave the euro zone. (They can’t throw us out.) It is not, as the Taoiseach variously claimed last week, about “economic recovery” or “jobs” or whether we “wish to participate in the European community and the euro and the euro zone from now on. It is surely not about how to define a structural deficit of 0.5 per cent – if it were, it would be the weirdest thing ever put to a public vote.

What it is about, however, is the creation of a thoughtcrime. A certain way of thinking is to be outlawed. It is not Nazism or racism or some other hateful ideology.

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It is, in fact, a way of thinking that was, for three decades after the second World War, the dominant economic “common sense” of much of the developed world: the philosophy of John Maynard Keynes. This is the intellectual framework of most of the European centre-left and of New Deal Democrats in the United States. And it is to be banned by an international treaty, like human trafficking or chemical warfare.

Context

Doubts linger over referendum date and wording

The Irish government has yet to announce an exact date for the referendum on the EU25 fiscal compact. Initially expected to take place in May or June after Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s February 28 announcement that the 10 page legal document will be submitted to a popular vote, the government, writes the Irish Times, is divided on the issue. According to government sources –

… while the general thinking is to hold it earlier rather than later, some senior Ministers have not dismissed the merits of holding the poll after the summer break.

Speaking to the Dublin daily on condition of anonymity, one senior minister argued that a later date –

… would allow us to wait and see the outcome of the French presidential election and the change, if any, in its approach to the Fiscal Treaty.

The Irish Independent reports that while the exact wording of the referendum has yet to determined, the question put to the electorate will be “strictly technical and factual”, say government sources, and will only “relate to amending the Irish Constitution to allow the State to ratify the treaty.” The eventual question on the ballot paper will not, therefore, pose a broader question about membership of the euro, as was suggested by Finance Minister Michael Noonan in December.

According to two recent polls, a substantial portion of the electorate remains undecided on whether to support ratification. A Sunday Business Post survey found 44% saying they would vote Yes, 29% voting No, and 26% undecided. A Sunday Independent poll found 37% in favour, 26% opposed and 15% who do not know.

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